No, they got caught. Repeatedly. For example, on the browser issue. They've been in court in a massive antitrust case that in a just world would have resulted in them being broken up. One can go down a list of their major, massive, ethical violations and questionable business practices (all of which have been massively successful in killing off its competition). Take Borland, for example -- the actual inventor of the IDE (good old Turbo Pascal, $45, on the IBM PC). Take Lotus. Take Wordstar and Word

Not surprisingly there are a lot of negative comments here, but to play devil's advocate: what practices of Microsoft's are really unethical? I mean that as an honest question. Maybe there's a huge list that I'm forgetting but I can't think of a lot offhand that really make me think of them as really evil. I don't always like their approach, but most of the time it seems like legitimate competitive behavior. When I think 'unethical', I think bribery, hidden agendas, employee abuse, poor environmental pr

paying contracted partners to join an industry standards organization committees around the world, give them instructions on their talking points so they vote in a Microsoft document as a standard. Oh and these Microsoft partners overwhelm the committees such that after the MS project vote they didn't continue their duties on the committees and progress all but stopped in the standards org.Then there's the bit about assigning no less than 12 Microsoft employees in a controlled effort to direct the product a

Maybe there's a huge list that I'm forgetting but I can't think of a lot offhand that really make me think of them as really evil. I don't always like their approach, but most of the time it seems like legitimate competitive behavior. When I think 'unethical', I think bribery, hidden agendas,

Unethical != Evil

So called "legitimate" competitive behavior might sometimes be unethical.
For example, lying, renigging on agreements, deception, are some unethical actions; misperceptions.
Many marketing activi

Wow. Wow. Wow. I cannot believe how wrong a person can be in a single post. Apart from the fact that most of what you refer to is merely opinion, and bad opinion at that.. You have real facts wrong. The term FUD was created to refer to IBM's tactics in th 70's and 80's. Microsoft did not "inspire" the term. Hell, even your signature shows your bias. Hint: You can't be ethical and biased at the same time...

Wouldn't you say it's unethical to accuse someone of things that are false? Demonstrably fals

Microsoft's continuing problems with their Chinese workforce [legalinfo.com] - remember, don't hire them directly. Farm it out to a subsidiary to distance yourself from the inevitable PR disaster.

Poor Environmental Practices
Did you mean to suggest Microsoft is a hardware company?

Or can we count all the useless trash they have pushed out the door, forcing users to reformat their machines as soon as they buy them so they can downgrade to a decent OS [crn.com], Vista ending up straight in the landfill?

Illegal and unethical are too different things. I believe Microsoft paying people to use their search engine was unethical competition, but then I think the rewards miles given out by airlines are unethical kickbacks as well (they know full well the majority of miles flown are paid for by companies for their employees, so the company pays for the miles but the employee benefits from them. Effectively they are bribing employees to not choose the cheapest carrier.)

Regardless of the rest of your post, you should know that Microsoft does have a hardware division. [microsoft.com] There's also the Zune of course. Software is the biggest part of their business, but if you got rid of it, there would still be a fairly sizeable hardware company left over.

This is quite a pathetic list. Cashback programs are bribery? Better not tell the DoJ, or every credit card company on Earth is going to be in deep shit.

"Microsoft buys patents". Seriously. Buying things is now unethical is the fevered minds of the MS-haters.

MS adds support for PDF. This is bad because it helps MS Office compete against Open Office. And God knows, trying to compete against FOSS isn't just unethical, it's a crime against humanity!

The CEO gets angry and throws a chair. Ergo, MS routinely abuses their employees. This is logical your mind? I doubt even you believe this one.

Christ man, the ONLY thing on that list that's really unethical is their corruption of the OOXML standards process. Next time, just leave it at that. Posting all that other stuff just makes you look like you're grasping at straws.

#2 Setting up contracts with vendors that required them to buy Windows licenses for every machine they sell even if the machine did not come with Windows.

That hasn't happened since 1993.

#4 Using a fabricated video during the anti-trust trial to make it look like IE could not be removed from the OS.

That was from the 1998 anti-trust trial, and without knowing whether it was intentional or not it's hard to say it was "unethical" (it was claimed that the video production team had merely used standard

So, is it unethnical that General Motors doesn't release the specifications for the 2011 engine until they ship the 2011 model and are already working on the 2012 model?

That's simply a fact of life.. Until the product ships, the spec is in transition. Locking it down means you're committing to implementing it as specified, and often times software changes even in the last days before release. Software just isn't a mature science yet.

And you do realize that it's been 4 years since the OOXML standardization

Indeed. Deep in the heart of Africa, there is a tree which grows only on a few square miles of land. This tree provides habitats for several species of endangered birds and primates. It's fruit provides for the well-being of a small primitive village. And its pith makes for the finest toilet paper on Earth. So Microsoft has purchased the grove in its entirety and is chopping it down for the well-being of executive rear end.

Honestly not meant as a troll, I guess my eyes just glaze over most of the time the topic comes up so I haven't paid much attention. I see a couple other responses with some actual examples, which certainly do seem unethical at a glance (and at the very least should make for some interesting wiki browsing for me tonight at work) that I'm looking forward to reading more about. But assuming your question was legit too: it does seem to me (again, just randomly sampling the wiki) like there are more than a f

Let's see.. Ignore all the antitrust stuff because that's way too easy... There was the permatemp thing. The Linux patent FUD. Funding SCO. Palladium and its offspring. A lot of people credit them with being behind the recent smear campaign against Google. The ISO OOXML debacle. EEE. Need I go on?

Symantec? REALLY? At least microsoft actually improves their product from version to version; Symantec looks for ways to make it break worse, and then spends 80% of their budget on marketing to convince every mom and pop that they need Norton, despite the fact that it is consistently one of the WORST pieces of software to install on a computer.

More than that, having known people who have worked there, it looks to me like Symantec's modus operandi is to buy companies with successful products, lay off all the staff working on the products, force people to train their replacements at an outsourcing firm in India, and provide the absolute minimum amount of support required in order to fulfill their contractual obligations without getting sued, all while progressively breaking the product with every release through poorly tested updates.

Ethical? Does ethical mean "will sell their customers' and employees' souls for a dollar?" If so, then they're ethical. If Symantec is one of the most ethical companies on the planet, then I'm Mother Teresa.

And eBay? The company that took the better part of a decade of complaints before they fixed the problem of power sellers abusing the feedback system to pressure buyers to retract negative feedback? The company whose PayPal arm routinely makes decisions about who to allow to use their service based on politics or even random whims, and freezes people's accounts without warning, leaving small businesses on the hook for thousands of dollars in payments that they can no longer afford?

If eBay is one of the most ethical companies on Earth, I'm the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Did the people who wrote this story even do the slightest bit of research beyond reading the corporations' PR blurbs when deciding who to list? Seriously?

It's a form of advertising that people take seriously enough to actually discuss. Better than some ad that people gloss over without a thought.

1. Compile a list that will make any business on that list look good. ("Ethical" is a good enough topic, as it's suitably nebulous.)
2. Quietly enable businesses to pay to be on that list. (They don't necessarily pay in cash. Perhaps good will or free licences will do?)
3. Ensure the list is allegedly compiled by an independent body. (The Ethisphere Institute s

I'm going to go ahead and say that if you've ever had to change the name of your company because of a huge ethical scandal then you shouldn't get to be on a list of ethical companies for a little more than 10 years. I'm looking at you Accenture (aka Anderson Consulting).

That was back when Time was much more intellectually honest about that process and standard.

Osama bin Laden was not Man of the Year for 2001 because they didn't have the courage to go through the firestorm of having to explain every 0.00005 seconds that it's recognition of impact, for good or ill, not necessarily an honor or endorsement.

To be fair, Forbes did not compile the list. I think the so-called "think tank" is more to blame.

As I posted on the site: Ethisphere Institute is one of those so-called "think-tanks" that makes up reports to "prove" anything it's sponsors want "proven." Microsoft makes sizable donation to many such "think-tanks" and all of those "think-tanks" are Microsoft friendly - what a surprise. Just one of the many super ethical things that MS does for us.

Nearly 3,000 companies were nominated--or nominated themselves--to be considered this year. The record-high number of nominations and applications demonstrates companies' desire to be acknowledged for high ethical standards.

See... companies nominate themselves... I wonder how much money under the table to the think tanks or people paid off it takes to be listed as most ethical?
Is it as many as it takes to get OOXML a rubber stamp as an "open" standard?

Ethisphere reviewed nominations from companies in more than 100 countries and 36 industries. Ethisphere's proprietary rating system, which it calls the Ethics Quotient, is based on a series of multiple-choice questions in a survey that is designed to capture a company's performance in an objective and standardized way.

Ah, it's proprietary. That means first and foremost "We won't tell the specifics of how this was determined"
That's what proprietary means, right? The exact details are secret, and therefore magically valid?

The winnowing process includes reviewing codes of ethics and litigation and regulatory infraction histories

Because unethical companies always have successful litigation/regulatory infractions against them, and ethical ones don't?
There's no such thing as a regulatory agency being in bed with a corp. Judges are never corrupt.
What's unethical is never legal and always breaks regulations, and what's ethical is always legal and never breaks regulations?

evaluating investment in innovation and sustainable business practices

Because innovative companies are automatically ethical and companies with "unsustainable" business practices are automatically unethical?

Any company that has had significant legal trouble over the past five years is dropped.

Because getting billion dollar fines in 2008 and being found liable for patent infringement is not significant legal troubles?

Companies that focus on alcohol, tobacco or firearms also get the boot.

Because it's arbitrarily declared unethical for Alcohol, Tobacco, or Firearms, to exist, or what?
That alone totally undermines Ethisphere credibility.

Firearms are essential for the preservation of human life.

So is Alcohol.. first of all Alcohol is one of the first antiseptics humans made, has important medical scientific uses;
has spurred many innovations. The product is not a bad one, and also, many "green fuel" producers are Alcohol
companies (also referred to as Ethanol)

So is Alcohol.. first of all Alcohol is one of the first antiseptics humans made, has important medical scientific uses; has spurred many innovations. The product is not a bad one, and also, many "green fuel" producers are Alcohol companies (also referred to as Ethanol)

I was a subscriber for a while, until they sent me a renewal notice written to look like a collections notice. A prior orkplace used to routinely be named on a "Best Places to Work" list (not by Forbes, though) to the collective dismay of all who worked there. These sorts of lists don't mean what you think they mean, unless you think they don't mean anything.

I do not think it means what you think it means. For a convicted monopolist with a track record of betraying their partners, subverting governments and standards bodies, and all around ruthless behavior to make the list, I wonder if the word 'ethical' means something to them other than what my dictionary says it does. Oddly enough Google, with their 'don't be evil' motto, doesn't seem to have made the list. I know they have committed their share of sins over the years, but it seems that what they have done so far does not hold a candle to even what Microsoft has done over the last decade.

Microsoft repeatedly changed agreements with developers. At one point, they required developers to pay thousands of dollars for a two-year membership, and then less than a year later simply discontinued that program and replaced it with a similar program that required new payment.

Microsoft sold Microsoft Money, claiming that it could import Quicken data. In fact, the box was empty but they promised a download in less than 60 days, which was repeatedly delayed. By then, it was too late to legally return the

Really though, Microsoft generally doesn't lock down their OS from tinkering (aside from lack of source), and unless windows mobile 7 has changed things you have file manager access and everything in their mobile platform. Android inexplicably doesn't come with a file manager last I checked. Absurd!

And unlike Sony, they aren't sending cease and desist letters to kinect hackers.

It is thanks to Microsoft (And IBM) we have the PC after all.

And they could easily be far worse patent trolls than they currently are.

Actually, most of the world pre-WWII thought Hitler was one of the best and more brilliant leaders of the 20th century. Especially following the Olympic games. He was even praised as being multicultural and liberal during the Olympics (which, in case you didn't know, was the Reich's first true and widest international showcasing). Mind you he temporarily took down all the anti-Semitic signs, forced the citizens to treat the international guests like pampered kings and queens and hid any evidence of his a

Isn't it time for Slashdot to create an article icon for Apple as well? Yes, in the 90s Microsoft was the IT villain, but now Apple has surpassed it for good with its walled garden of closed experience. Time for a "Steve Jobs the Borg" avatar!!:p

A corporation's only mandate is to make money. Microsoft doesn't poison wells or denude wetlands to make its money, but it's not estranged from all of the immoral-though-legal acts that every rich bastard makes use of to work the system. It's not a proud thing to be the most honest of all thieves.

The headline is probably true. Microsoft is probably among one of the most ethical corporations. That only means that corporations are not very ethical. That is reasonable given the facts. Their main goal is short term monetary gain for the quarterly report, they have the rights of a person and legally have none of the responsibilities of a person.

Microsoft isn't at its peak of douchebaggery, but the only explanation for the idealistic portrayal you paint is you not watching all news involving Microsoft. Someone who only knows of a company through their own product purchases should not feel qualified to comment on that company. To be fair, Microsoft isn't in the headlights like it was in the 90s, and news today is comparably enormous; most people do not read all Microsoft headlines, because there are more important things to care about.

My power supplier was awarded "consumer friendly company" and "reliable company" awards last year, while they've sent all their invoices late (usually after payment deadline) and threatened customers with "outstanding" invoices with submission to the "bad debt registry".

I even called ranking-maker about this issue and learned, that companies submit themselves, then categories were created, and asked people (some 400 people in total, this was not an open vote) to indicate the most reliable companies. In largely monopolized categories (such as power supply) company can be nearly sure to be voted winner. (but that is ok, as they've paid fee for contest admission)

All of this is subjective - Microsoft is ethical in that they combat piracy in the workplace and promote ethical values (e.g. racial/sexual equality, anti-corruption training, etc) in the workplace, but their conduct as far as monopolistic behavior has been anything but ethical.

The number one in that category is Adobe, and they've had a similar history or relentlessly crushing the competition.

It's the little things that make your post stand out as a shill. You almost had it perfect except for a few sections:

Microsoft is part of my family

My stuff works with MS stuff, and I enjoy their offerings.

I feel pretty educated in the Technology world (note the capitalization)

I have to say, it was one of the better insidious postings I've seen. Empathizing with the target audience by noting historic controversy, then defending their current direction is a powerful rhetoric device. If you didn't make such over-the-top enthusiastic claims, you might have escaped detection.

The scary thing is that I'm starting to wonder if there are actually just some people out there who really think like that. Not that I would even care.. I'm used to being in a minority position when it comes to my views on OSes etc. It would just be sad if some people actually fell for the act. I am trying to be more level headed in my thinking on MS these days. I even bought a 360 at the end of last year just so I could play online with friends who can't afford a PS3 *hangs head in shame* but I really woul

Life must be hard on a poor neocon like you, what, with people refusing to bow down before your obvious superiority, and raptly listening as you expound upon the inerrant wisdom of the Federalist Papers and the work of Leo Strauss. Clearly no reasonable person (50% of even those paragons of infinite virtue The Founding Fathers were on board... how could lesser men be expected to comprehend?) could ever know and understand precisely what you're talking about, yet still consider it a load of horseshit. Also, that must make them an evil socialist, because everyone knows that there are only two real political ideologies: Patriotic Republican Americanism, and Socialist Nazi Sovietism.

They still bill you per socket. Which is almost as bad. I still think that Oracle bills per core. MS is still doing this with it's server line though. Want more than 32 GB of RAM? Upgrade to the enterprise version.

How can that be "unethical" if it's what all vendors do? The only time MS got any criticism is when processor makers started producing multiple processors per socket and their software wasn't licensed with that idea in mind. How can you blame them for following the status quo for personal computers since their inception? Now MS, like all the vendors, has per-socket pricing.

In my opinion, all corporations as they reach certain size, became evil.

Microsoft was already evil when it consisted of just Gates and Allen (Gates provided enough evil for both at the time, but later Allen tried to make up for lost time). Then Microsoft grew up to become way more evil that most of the companies you are thinking of.

What's "unethical" about a means to ensure that you have paid for your product?

What gets me is "Symantec Corporation" is on that list. A few people I know that have been silly enough to use Norton's have had problems (dumb problems) with their licenses if they had purchased > 1 years of license. And fixing the problem has always been a pain in the arse. How can a company that takes two years of license fees then demands money off you after 1 year be considered "ethical".